06/08/2026
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We’re proud to announce that Boluwatife Oyediran is part of the group exhibition “RISD Emerging,” featuring works by Rhode Island School of Design alumni from classes of 2023-26, presented Featherstone Center for the Arts and curated by RISD President Crystal Williams and Director of Campus Exhibitions Mark Moscone.
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Oyediran presents “Portrait of the Artist as an Alien of Extraordinary Ability—by the Sea” (2025–26), a self-portrait that reflects on migration, identity, and the politics of belonging. Developed while the artist prepared an EB-1A petition amid shifting U.S. immigration policies, the work considers the tensions between recognition and precarity, asking what it means to be deemed « extraordinary » within a changing national landscape.
The artist reflects:
“I’ve never struggled with a painting the way I struggled with this one. Right from the start, its whole premise didn’t make sense to me, because the painting presents a portrait of me—a Black non-immigrant—in negative, standing by the ocean, gallantly wearing U.S. flag dungarees (as both armor and costume?). I developed the painting from a photo taken of me at RISD Beach in December 2024, at a time when my world as a Nigerian in America was less chaotic, and when I hadn’t yet fully contemplated my place in this country. But as time passed, and as I reluctantly returned to the piece again and again—while simultaneously working on my EB-1A ‘Alien of Extraordinary Ability’ petition—and as immigration policies tightened and my home country was banned indefinitely and my world took a dark turn, I began to ponder: what is my place in this country, what is the extent of my extraordinariness, in this country I’ve long admired, especially in its 250th year?”
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📷 “Portrait of the Artist as an Alien of Extraordinary Ability—by the Sea” (2025-26)
Oil and acrylic on canvas
182 x 122 cm
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📆 On view through August 16, 2026 at Featherstone Center of the Arts, Martha’s Vineyard.
📍30 Featherstone Lane (off of Barnes Road), Oak Bluffs, MA 02557, USA
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